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Are Students’ Responses and Behaviors Consistent?

written by
Umporn Wutchana,
Narumon Emarat, and
Eugenia Etkina

In our project we attempted to determine if students whose beliefs about physics are more expert-like and less expert-like, as judged by the CLASS survey, are different in terms of their approaches to learning physics and whether their behaviors in the classroom are consistent with their responses to the surveys. All students enrolled in the second semester of an introductory physics course took the CLASS survey. We used survey results to identify expert-like and non-expert like students to participate in the study. We selected four highest scoring and four lowest scoring students. We then observed those students in laboratories and problem-solving recitations during one semester and interviewed them at the end. We found some inconsistencies between students' responses to the survey and their actual behaviors as well as several significant differences in behaviors of more expert-like and less expert-like students. This work was supported by the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology, Thailand.

Physics Education Research Conference 2009
Part of the PER Conference series
Ann Arbor, Michigan:
July 29-30 , 2009
Volume 1179, Pages 305-308

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